Thursday, June 8, 2017

Crypt of Dark Secrets (1976)

Rather than the
cobweb-strewn gothic fare its title suggests, Crypt of Dark Secrets offers 71 minutes of supernatural sleaze set mostly in a swamp. The story is slow-moving nonsense about a witch raising a
man from the dead and then using his corpse as an instrument of revenge, although that development doesn’t occur until fairly late in the running time.
Most of what happens beforehand is dull and talky, and a few kinky bits
overwhelm everything else. Playing the witch is Maureen Ridley, a brunette with
an outrageous body and very few inhibitions. In the flick’s most eye-popping
scene, Ridley—her figure nude and slathered with oil—does an erotic dance that
culminates with humping a coffin. Other WTF moments include the opening
scene, in which Ridley levitates, and the vignette featuring a “voodoo lady”
giving the world’s most aggressive acupuncture treatment. (After heating needles over an open flame, she stabs them into her client as if
she’s channeling Norman Bates.) The “voodoo lady,” by the way, is a young woman
wearing a gray wig, a pathetic attempt at making her character appear wizened. Perhaps the most laughable scene in Crypt
of Dark Secrets involves the witch’s accomplice, a beardy hermit named Ted.
For reasons that make very little sense, he’s pulled from his remote island
residence to a nearby city and questioned by authorities about cash he
keeps hidden in his house. While Ted explains exactly where the money is
located, a bystander leans in to listen so obviously that it’s comical no one
in the scene notices. Only those who consume cinema ironically will dig this
experience, inclusive of horrid dialogue. During an origin-story flashback, the witch is
told the following: “You’ll find that the cool body of the reptile will be your
favorite resting place!”